international for that one and as i said, chevron, dominion energy. great to see you, merry christmas. happy holidays. jamie cox, harris financial group managing partner title. [closing bell rings] here is the closing bell. covid mutation fears hit stocks. the dow is up 37. connell: relatively volatile day back and forth on wall street. the dow was fighting gains into the close. looks like it will win the fight. off the session lows. down 423 points early in the session. now closes up on day. this after lawmakers did reach the 900 billion-dollar stimulus agreement. but also today, you have at least 30 countries who have travel restrictions in place with a new strain of covid-19 quickly moving across the uk. that news seemed partly overshadowed another milestone in the fight against coronavirus. moderna's vaccine being shipped

out as of today across the united states. at the close we're up 37 on the dow. that is pretty good all things considered. s&p 500, nasdaq, both down, down less than 1%. so we finished mixed on wall street. i'm connell mcshane. great to have you here on monday. time for "after the bell." time for the news happening this hour. our fox news our fox team coolrage, gerri willis in new york, blake burman in washington and word on stimulus about to get done we start with you. reporter: package was in the rules committee. it is about to hit the house floor for debate. bottom line the process is underway. it is possible the house takes this up, the timing is fluid of course, maybe 8:00, 9:00 later tonight. then it would go on over to the senate. 5593 pages this thing is, when you combine it as well with the $1.4 trillion omnibus government

spending deal. let me go through some of just a few of the top line numbers of course. as there is a lot in it. there is a 284 billion-dollar reauthorization of the ppp small business loan program. $15 billion for airlines. they're going to have rehire back some 32,000 workers. another $15 billion as well for theaters, live venues, museums. $600 for individuals that make less than $75,000, document for couples and people that have children. a $300 plus-up if you lost your job. 25 billion-dollars for rental assistance. $82 billion for colleges and schools for covid related costs. make sure that classrooms are safe for kids of all ages. this is how senate majority leader mitch mcconnell characterized it when he took to the senate floor earlier today. >> no sprawling left-wing wish-list. no unconstrained bailouts for

state and local government. with no connection to covid understood. just, smart, targeted, bipartisan policies. reporter: roughly 900 billion-dollar package, connell, but you remember back in october the white house offered $1.9 trillion. the top democrat in the senate, chuck schumer, earlier today toughed the package saying that there are as he put it, three beacons of hope. >> one, soon many americans will have the vaccine. two, joe biden will become president. he has the experience and empathy to handle the covid crisis and will replace a man who has shown no capacity or even interest in doing so. and three, we are on the verge of passing another historic bipartisan relief bill to deliver emergency assistance during a time of national

emergency. reporter: we await for this to get to the deck of president trump. he will indeed sign the measure. wondering about direct payments, 600-dollar direct payments, treasury secretary steve mnuchin said earlier today it could be as soon as next week that those checks get out. connell? connell: all right. long time in coming but that will be welcome news to a lot of people around the country. blake burman live in washington next up is fox news correspondent greg palkot reporting from london with the latest on the new strain of crone cron we keep hearing about today? reporter: very disturbing, just in time for christmas. a big new covid-19 problem for the uk, maybe for elsewhere. yes, as you said it's a mutant strain of coronavirus t was revealed over the weekend. it has been detected recently in and around london. officials here say as many as 60% of the new cases exhibit this strain and the strain they claim could be 70% more

contagious than the old strain. so they have issued a tough new lockdown for london and the surroundings. a ban on foreign talf by brits. that triggered as you can imagine a rush by thousands and thousands to get to trains, airports to get out as other countries followed suit. right now the number over 40 countries many in europe, canada, india, russia, banning anyone entering from the uk. a lot more trouble today at the ports here in the uk. france banning all trucks from britain. that basically disrupted cargo traffic between the uk and europe. thousands and thousands of trucks backed up for miles from the ports with warnings from stores there could be shortages in the next couple day unless this is fixed. this as the vaccine, as in the u.s. continued to be rolled out here. scientists again saying today, they don't think this new variant is resistant to the vaccines. they don't think it is more deadly than the old strain but

they are not sure. so they are checking in the labs. again for washington, for the united states, there is concern too. they are not yet following the lead of these other countries in issuing a full uk travel ban but connell, our viewers can remember there has been a pretty strong restriction on travel from the uk into the u.s. since march that the trump administration put in place. maybe a good thing. new reports today of the strain being detected elsewhere in europe. maybe in the u.s. back to you. connell: maybe. a lot we still don't know. thank you, greg palkot, live in london. dr. nicole saphier joins us fox news medical contributor. what is the level of concern when you hear, dr. nicole, about the new strain? is it possible we're making too much of it at this point? is it something we should be you know, quite concerned about. >> connell it makes for a good

headline when you see a variant strain in the middle of a pan pap. let's break this down. since march we had many variants popped up we've seen. for instance the strains very prominent in europe was different than what was in china. we saw the european strain came more to the northeast. that is what we saw circulating in the new york city area. whereas the china variant we saw more in the northwest. we've seen other variants. we saw one linked to mink in denmark. this is subpoenaing we see happens every single year with the influenza virus. the big question is, what does it mean for treatments? what does it mean for our vaccine? does it mean that it is not going to work? the answer is we don't really know. the good news, when you look at viruses they tend to mutate to live longer t would behoove them to be less deadly because they

don't want to i will account host t may be more contagious, more transmissible and tends not to be more deadly. they're not seeing it is more deadly the word coming out of the uk. in terms of the vaccine that is a big question. if people are getting the vaccine right now does that mean this new variant they will not have immunity to it? although they can't say for certain it is probably not. the immune response that comes from a vaccination is very robust really needs a massive genetic alteration of the virus to escape immunity from the vaccine. it is still a big question mark but a probably not right now. connell: right. we'll take probably not over probably yes any day of the week obviously after everything we've been through, that the experts don't think this is some sort of a giant mutation as you say. in terms of dealing with it, we watched or asked policy makers all the time what they're going to do i know some people as greg palkot sate we should ban travel.

some in europe are doing that. what about a medical professional's point of view on that? does that even work? even though we were worried about the new strain it could easily been here already. somebody could have gotten on a plane from london or somewhere else. so do these travel bans work? >> historically speaking there is a lot of data on travel bans and it mixed. some say just limited travel ban, stopping travel from maybe the uk or europe in general but you're not halting interstate travel or other international travel, it may delay the virus coming here but likely doesn't stop it all together. so you really it is a risk benefit ratio in terms of shutting down the economy versus what is inevitable. my biggest concern with the variant strain, will it give us a false-negative test? if someone is presenting with the symptoms for covid, they get their testing negative and it is because they have this new variant are they not going to then isolate and quarantine

because they were told that they don't actually have covid? that is my biggest question right now. the travel bans, likely we have some of our own variants circulating within the united states. i'm not so as you probably mentioned it you probably already here. we just don't know it yet. i don't know how much the travel ban will add. people are in crisis mode. we're heading into the holidays. we're panicking a bit. connell: you're right, this that is real interesting point about the tests rather than vaccines. we'll obviously look out for that. final point what advice are you giving people? it is christmas week, what advice are you giving people how, what they should be thinking about as the holiday comes up? >> well 2020 has been very difficult for every single one of us and going into the holidays it is already hard physically and mentally regardless of being in a the middle of a pandemic. people have feelings of loneliness, depression, anxiety, stress. a lot of other things. so as we head into the holiday

season i'm telling people do what you can to take care of yourself physically but also mentally. make sure you're keeping in touch with your friends and your family. you really have to continue to limit the indoor gatherings. do everything you can to lessen the spread. our hospitals are quite full with patients. we have over 100,000 people still hospitalized with this devastating illness. connell: dr. nicole saphier as always, thank you. great to see you. i want to get back to the stock market reaction to this virus news today and we're joined by fox news contributor, adam lashinsky columnist at business insider. it is two things, adam. we were just talking about with dr. nicole, this new strain we don't know a lot about in the uk, big headline versus the new stimulus which is not quite done but they have the agreement in place and it will be done, new strain, new stimulus and which one do you think is the bigger story, what do you say? >> well you know we talk all the time about how the market likes certainty. so the stimulus bill provides some certainty for the u.s.

economy. you can model that now and you can know there will be some relief for people badly in need economically. you cannot model when what this new strain, what the travel bans in europe and perhaps elsewhere will mean going forward and you think that is you saw so much negative sent men today. you saw airlines and oil, prices of oil going down because you know, we just seen over the last nine months, sometimes these things last two weeks. sometimes they last a lot longer than that. connell: let me bring up one individual stock and it is tesla because it is the first day obviously in the s&p 500. down 6 1/2% in the trading session. falling from all-time high of its debut. you have to get 8 billion in the s&p. it is market cap coming in was more like 600 billion. the question now becomes what is next? how do investors think about tesla? there will obviously be more

competition. there was a headline in reuters where apple is moving forward with self-droving technology. they want to get a car with that technology up and running by 2024. it has been pa great run for the stock but what's next in tesla's world, i wonder? >> the last two trading days have been sort of neat and tidy, right? the stock was up 5% on friday because fund managers who track the s&p 500 index had to own it. down a similar amount, a little more than that today perhaps because people could then feel free to dump it or counteract for that, you know, artificial bump at the end of last week. going forward this company has faced so many doubters so many times. what it has demonstrated is, that it's the leader in electric vehicles. i mean it has, i think 17 years head start over companies like apple. we can talk about what they might or might not do. i'm not saying it is all clear

for tesla. i'm saying they will not be easily knocked off the perch where they are right now. connell: fair enough. always good to see you. thank you, adam lashinsky. >> thank you, connell. connell: from business insider these days. new deal on covid relief we've been talking about is actually being met with trepidation by at least one industry. next up we speak with a hammer of the -- member of the independent restaurant coalition on why they say the bill falls woefully short. despite news of a vaccine officials are warning after new virus surge. it will only get worse in the weeks ahead. one of the very first congressman to receive the vaccine happens to be a practicing surgeon. he will tell us about his experience. lot more to come ♪ we made usaa insurance for veterans like martin.

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♪. connell: after months and months of waiting for congress to pass another covid relief bill the independent restaurant coalition says this latest bipartisan agreement that has been reached just not enough and job security for 11 million independent restaurant workers is still in jeopardy. caroline stein joins us, independent restaurant advisor group member. we have restaurant owners on all the time, carolyn.

you know, as part of this group represent a broader coalition of them. and they have, you know we know how much they're struggling, how many people in the industry are struggling. why isn't the bill not enough? there is a lot of money on the surface there is ppp money and what's missing? >> what is missing long term failure here. we've been operating incredibly low levels or closed for over nine months now. the industry is just in dire, dire jeopardy. while the ppp is a little bit of a help it is really just a ban aid. it is a bridge to get us through the next eight to 24 weeks, however we're allowed to use the loan for. it won't allow us to bring all the employees back on. we still have 11 million people at risk. we need to get through to the end of this. the end of this is not in eight weeks. the end of this is not in 10 weeks. it is probably not 24 weeks either. it looks like end of year if at

all we get to normal business levels. connell: what could congress have done do you think? you know it was a battle to get to this point. if they wanted to stay at 900 billion or a trillion, should they have said forget about it, we don't want to send people direct checks, we should do something directly for restaurants? how could this have been figured out and done differently? >> well look, there are some people in need. there are other industries in need. we're not the only one and all the people getting direct checks they need that money too. the whole country is in crisis. they should have done a larger package to create a stimulus package this is a brief relief package. they should have come to the stable, how are we getting our country through this? for restaurants, it means the restaurant act t was a grant program used in a certain way like ppp or it would not be forgiven but a grant program that would replace most of our lost revenues to dig us out of the last nine months of debt.

pay back all the rent we owe to our landlords, get people off the unemployment for good. the ppp gives people temporarily off of unenemployment. when you see at the end of the loan everyone will be back on unemployment just like we were faced with during the first round of ppp. connell: what is your next move as a group? are you rooting for democrats in georgia on the thesis if the democrats control the house or senate it is more likely the restaurant act and more stimulus in general guesses passed after the new year or is that, just too late? >> well i think that this is not necessarily a partisan issue. this is an issue that has supporters on both sides of the aisle in both houses of congress. roger wicker from mississippi a republican senator, brought this bill forward along with a democratic representative earl blumenaur in the house.

we'll keep pushing this. chuck schumer said this is just a bridge for restaurants, we need a lot more help. we have a long way to go. our business is about bringing people together in large groups in order to survive in this business atmosphere. to do that we need to look much guard than this brief period of time this loan covers. connell: what's your sense what this, you know, environment, it may not be the same. in fact i'm almost positive it won't be the same in different parts of the country but what the environment might look like in six months? the vaccine will be there. we'll all feel better about that but one school of thought says there is so much pent-up demand that everyone wants life to get back to normal. first thing they want to eat more, spend more time to eat and do things they used to do. there is another school of thought that people will be maybe more cautious. what do you think the world will look like in the next six months if you had to guess. >> it will be a mixed bag.

a large number of people will not be comfortable going out. at restaurant operations we're at the mercy of our health departments and of our state and national leaders to let us know how we can operate. we've been forced to close or curtail our work product, to accommodate special distancing and wearing ppe, taking care of people. we don't know what we're looking at in six months? will we see the restaurant normally? will we have to have tables six to eight feet apart still? when you do that you don't have a full restaurant. you have a 50% full restaurant. that doesn't get us there we're all hoping everybody wants to go out but none of us really nodes what the future holds where the vaccine will take us, how many people will take the vaccine and just how many people actually have immunity and take off their masks to walk around normally again. connell: you're right, there is a lot of unknowns and you know, means more tough times i'm sure

ahead for this industry. why we've been following this so closely we'll keep doing whether the restaurant act or anything else. we'll have you back. caroline, thank you for coming on today. all the best for everybody that owns the restaurants out there. sterile lynn styne. despite record breaking covid numbers and cdc guidance to stay at home for the holidays, this is interesting, interesting,tsa screened more than three million passengers at the airports when you combine friday, saturday and sunday in the u.s. and that is the highest three-day total since march. so more people are traveling for better or worse. we'll be right back. re's somethu shouldn't try at home... look, liberty mutual customizes home insurance so we only pay for what we need. it's pretty cool. that is cool! grandma! very cool.

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♪. connell: an education news as we come back. there is a steep learning curve around the country when it comes to remote learning. millions of students are still without the means to go to school virtually. here we are nine months into this pandemic. more on that today from gerri willis. gerri. reporter: hey, connell, you got

that right exactly. pandemic lockdowns have gone on so long now that school administrators are taking extraordinary steps to try to find teachers for the classroom and to set up remote learning for students. one baltimore county high school teacher describes the situation this way, listen. >> we don't have enough classroom teachers. we don't have enough paraprofessionals to support us. we do have devices that are constantly breaking down. we don't seem, we don't have enough to replace them. a lot of us are using our own personal resources, our own funds for whatever short comings we're coming about. reporter: states are relying on emergency credentialing, 16% of teachers hired in the 2019, 2020 school year from non-traditional backgrounds according to the association of employment and education. in missouri, substitute teacher

requirements are simply a high school diploma and online training course. in arizona where shortages are particularly acute, the school district in scottsdale is asking parents to apply. others are seeking college students to cover teacher absences. students without internet devices, according to common sense media.com find that about 30% of the u.s. k-12 public school students lived in household without a internet connection or devised a caught to study remotely. so big problems with connectivity. some of the districts are paying out of their own pockets. some are using money from the cares act to close that gap but there is a lot to do. it is very expensive. connell, back to you. connell: all right. gerry, thank you. gerri willis on that. that is a big story for a lot of people around the country. as we continue we'll have more on the new strain of covid that sparked a lockdown in the uk.

and now there are additional calls for more travel restrictions here in the u.s. to prevent what one official is calling a quote, disaster waiting to happen. so we'll have that. how about this, be on the lookout for the christmas star. tonight for about an hour after sunset, jupiter and saturn will appear so closely aligned in the sky they will look like a double planet. it is the so-called great conjunction. this has not happened in nearly 800 years. take a look if you can. we'll be back. worked like that. well have you tried thinkorswim? this is totally customizable, so you focus only on what you want. okay, it's got screeners and watchlists. and you can even see how your predictions might affect the value of the stocks you're interested in. now this is what i'm talking about. yeah, it'll free up more time for your... uh, true crime shows? british baking competitions. hm. didn't peg you for a crumpet guy. focus on what matters to you with thinkorswim.

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♪. connell: all right. in the headlines after the bell, front line essential workers and americans over the age of 75, they should be next to get the vaccine. that is what advisory panel of the centers for disease control has recommended. if you look at the data, americans aged 75 and older make up 25% of covid hospitalizations. only though about 6% of the population. closing new york, off to london. governor of new york, andrew cuomo is calling for a travel ban from the uk. it is a more contagious strain of covid is identified in england and residents are trying to get out there have before a new lockdown goes into effect. talk much another stimulus in washington once the new guy is in office. house democratic leaders are calling the 900 billion-dollar stimulus a starter package. speaker nancy pelosi says they will have easier time passing a

bigger stimulus than when a republican president and senate. control of the senate will be determined in the two runoffs in georgia next month. in either case democrats work with a slimmer majority in the house of representatives as well. those are some headlines. analysis from dan henninger joins us. "wall street journal" assistant editorial page editor. dan, good to see you. we'll start where we ended on stimulus. all the headlines about 900 billion but pelosi and company say we could double that and more in the new congress. i guess it comes down to georgia in many ways whether they will be able to get that done what do you think? >> absolutely it comes down to georgia. that is the short answer. if the republican hold the senate they do not get that done. if on the other hand democrats take control of the senate it is katy-bar-the-door. the sky isn't the limit. outer atmosphere with neptune and jupiter will be the limit on democratic spending. let's try to understand this

clearly though, connell. i think that the coronavirus needs of people's struggling with that is a footnote to what the democrats are about. this is mainly the issue that has been at the holding up this bill for months which is bailing out states and localities mainly in blue states. there are four or five states, new york, new jersey, illinois, and california, that were always on a slippery slope with their indebtedness and the democrats decided this is the moment when they're going to try to nationalize that blue state debt. in other words, make all americans pay for it f joe biden gets control of the senate it is their intention to go in there and bail out the debt of these blue states, debt that is not entirely related to the pandemic. connell: one of those blue states, new york as i mentioned where the governor is calling on a travel ban to be put in place from the uk where this new strain has been discovered of the coronavirus which is

supposedly more contagious. frankly as we heard earlier in the show we just don't know a lot about it at this point but governor cuomo says we should put a travel ban in place. that is back to the future in terms of conversations we were having earlier in the pandemic whether those bans work. it is quite possible as mentioned earlier this new strain, if it does exist could be already here and the travel ban, if you put it in place kind of hurts you on both sides because obviously there is an economic impact of that. what do you think? >> yeah, i agree with that i think we should be a little bit more humble at this point about statements about viruses. the original statement about the new uk, united kingdom strain it was 70% more transmissible. where did the number 70%? why not 60, why not 90? that is puts a lot of fear in people. that is the instrument or policy weapon they try to use to keep people in place. andrew cuomo is calling on bans

on travel from the united kingdom and in this is the same governor a week ago as you reported on this show banned indoor dining not that the his own data says transmissibility of indoor signing is 4.1%. as andrew cuomo waves his hand makes statements about the virus and what we should do about it should be taken with a grain of salt. it is deadly and dangerous, no question about it but there is so much we don't know and we won't know until we get an immediate testing protocol that allows people arriving from overseas to be tested on the spot, not two days after they arrive. connell: we don't know yet whether or not with this new strain would have any impact on vaccines and their rollout and effectiveness. so far the experts tell us it

probably won't. the hope it will still have effective vaccines, to the point about the timing, roll out who should get it next. we'll talk to a member of congress in a moment about this. there is all the attention on members of congress. some are young and healthy. getting it before others that would be at the front of the line whereas this advisory panel is saying affront line workers, people 75 and older get it to them, that is what data shows would help us the most? >> yeah. you know, connell, it was interesting when the folks at fox said we're going to be talking about this i gave it a little bit of thought and you know, i'm fine with the idea that people age 75 and over should be getting the vaccine because far and away they are the ones who have been dying the most, no question about it but as for the rest of it, i think we're really going down a bad path if we start to mike microscopically describing hierarchies of categories and

deserving, need. you can make arguments before or half of everybody. you could make the argument congressman should get in back of the line. on other hand they're doing a lot of business and doing important travel to do the business. we all should pretty much relax about this. we'll get the vaccine probably by early summer. most of us will have been vaccinated. we'll cause ourselves a lot less social bitterness if we don't get bogged down in debates who is more deserving and who isn't deserving. connell: those are real interesting points. everybody could agree. we could do without some of the social bitterness. if we could make that go down a little bit we would be better off for it. thank you, dan henninger, as always good to see you, dan henninger from the journal. we have a new retail perk. walmart is one upping amazon when it comes to returning packages. the retail giant will pick up items sold on walmart.com at customer's homes.

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the president-elect and future first lady were administered the first dose of the pfizer vaccine as anticipation has been growing over who mr. biden might pick as his attorney general. more on all of this now from fox news correspondent rich edson. rich has the wilmington, delaware assignment here on a monday. rich, what is the latest? reporter: good afternoon, connell and that's right, with a nod to scientists and technicians and even the trump administration the president-elect joe biden did get his shot for the covid-19 vaccine. the pfizer version of it. that is of course the first of two shots. >> the administration deserves some credit getting this off the ground with "operation warp speed." you know this is just the beginning. it is one thing to get the vaccine out and now moderna is, is going to be on the road as well but it is going to take time. reporter: vice president-elect

kamala harris says the transition team is also watching the new covid variant in the uk and has yet to commit to joining other european countries in banning travel from the united caping dom. harris was asked whether the white house should be fumigated since there have been so many positive test there is? she said she is hoping for a smooth transition. certainly that is something they are looking at. or working on actually what she said. while congress agreed to other coronavirus economic package, the president-elect calls it just a start. he said this action in the lame-duck session is just the beginning. our work is far from over, starting in the new year, congress will need to get to work on support for our covid-19 plan, for support for struggling families and investments in jobs and economic recovery. this is all as the transition says says president-elect is working on figuring out who he will pick for attorney general. even more sensitive given the

fact whomever is chosen as attorney general will oversee a justice department investigating hunter biden. that is something the transition team says biden will not take into account for his decision. back to you. connell: sensitive, indeed, thank you, rich edson, wilmington, delaware. talk about the vaccine, republican north carolina congressman greg murphy. the congressman also a medical doctor and he is among to receive the covid vaccine on friday. congressman, good to see you, thank you for coming on. every time we have someone vaccinated already i start by asking him how was it. are there any side-effects. tell us your story? >> routine vaccination i pop a couple eye ibuprofensi always thought it helps. i had untoward effects, no fever, or ill-effects. i think it has been a routine thing for me. connell: president-elect biden

getting his vaccine in delaware. dr. fauci will being among those vaccinated tomorrow. with members of congress getting the vaccine i sure you hit some criticism, they're jumping the line, that kind of thing. there is another school of thought saying they're setting an example, saying it is safe for everybody to get out there but how do you respond to the criticism saying why are you guys going before us? >> well i think when i first heard about that, be honest with you i had the same thoughts. i'm a little bit after unique situation. i'm still a front line health care physician. i still operate. i still see patients. i was actually in line in our medical center to get the vaccine today. but i thought since they were offering it in d.c. i would go ahead, step forward. i've been a major proponent of all the things the administration has done for the last 10 months. done 30 instructional videos. i think it is important not only in my role as congress, as a member of congress but also as a physician to step forward to say i believe this is safe.

i believe this is our pathway to get out of the pandemic and take the shot and see that i have had no ill-effects. connell: the other side of it is obviously should the president himself, one side is being critical, the other side should the president himself step up and do it publicly. >> that is logical question. it is an interesting one, theoretically, theoretically he should have antibodies right now. so i don't know the scientific community has consensus whether he needs to get the vaccine right now or not. whether it should be passed on to other folks who have not been exposed to the virus yet. connell: that is interesting, as a doctor, what are you telling people? i know, my doctor i asked him that question when i went in for my physical because i had the virus way back in april. should i get the shot? absolutely he said you should get it. what are you telling people? >> i don't disagree with you getting the shot. i don't know you need be on the front line to do that. we still don't know how long the antibodies stick around for

anybody. we still don't know if somebody will have hyper immune response, a rare things that happens in vaccinated people exposed to the virus. but in this case you know i was in our hospital this past weekend talking with a lot of the nurses and front line folks. a lot of them to be very honest with you, some even guys on the front line in the emergency departments are still reluctant to get the vaccine. all the more reason i as physician as well as member of congress step up to say, hey, i'm taking the vaccine. please see that i have had no i will effects. you should really jump on, continue on the way for people to be inoculated. connell: fair enough. before i let you go, congressman, i want to ask you a little bit about stimulus as we work towards that passage of this 900 billion-dollar bill. as you know the next conversation is, should we do more, once as a new congress, new president in place. where do you stand on that? looks like both parties have some level of support. i know senator mcconnell today

for example, said something to the effect well if we do another stimulus i will insist liability protection is part of it. that leads you to believe there is some level of stimulus supported on a bipartisan basis in the next congress, what do you think? >> well it is very interesting because the president and secretary mnuchin offered nancy pelosi 1.9 trillion a couple months ago and for political reasons you turned that down. is this a perfect amount of stimulus? no. it is not a perfect amount and there are fields and there are businesses that perhaps need to be entreated a lot more or given a lot more assistance in the future. but this is a very targeted approach to try to get relief to people who need it, who need it now. what happens in the future we'll remain open-minded to this. we're printing money. we're printing money that doesn't exist. around so we have to keep the very, very wary of where we are going with the debt in this nation to try to balance those factors. connell: all right. congressman greg murphy. we're out of time. we thank you for coming on.

dr. murphy, appreciate all insights on the vaccine as well as on stimulus. health officials warning of a postholiday covid surge still. next up we'll have more on that. remember there was a war on thanks giving. now christmas week same deal. a live report on phoenix. intensive care unit in phoenix already at capacity. more in a moment. dent loan debt. (chime) choosing sofi was literally one of the best decisions i could have ever made because it gave me peace of mind. ♪ at mercedes-benz, sit's not just a job, it's our mission. from our expert technicians armed with state of the art tools and technology, to genuine parts made for the perfect fit. whether it's our place... ...or yours. we're there. rain or shine, day or night. no one knows your vehicle better.

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♪ ♪ connell: all right. back with a virus update. you know, the coronavirus death toll in the u.s. has now topped 318,000. with the vaccine rollout picking up steam, the problem around the country is that intensive care units are just running out of space. california's governor, gavin newsom, saying no icu beds were available and just vast swaths of his state. as a problem in phoenix, arizona, as well where fox's matt finn is reporting. >> reporter: connell, banner e

health is the largest health care provide orer here, and it reports covid hospitalizations increased by 93% in the first 15 days of this month. banner health care says right now half of all the patients in us hospital system are covid-positive. and, unfortunately, the hospital's overflowing, so they brought in refrigerated trucks to store bodies. ventilator use has increased by 500% since november 1st. of arizona has you are passed us summer surge with a 1.15 reproduction rate, one of the highest in the country. california, that state calculates right now it has 0% icu capacity in its southern region, and health care experts nationwide rewarninging we're going to see the speak from thanksgiving travel combined with christmas and and new year's, and it's going to make things worse. >> when health care systems become overrun, patients will suffer higher death rates. this could mean the car accident victim, the heart attack victim, the stroke patient or the child

with a severe asthma attack. >> reporter: last week the united states marked its deadliest week of the pandemic, more than 18,000 people died according to johns hopkins. but there is also really good news as you just discussed, today the department of health and human services says pfizer and moderna have millions more vaccines to ship across the country right now, connell. connell: it's interesting, matt, i'd just be curious to if get your take on travel, about 30 seconds left, but what are the airports like? we did a story about the tsa industrial screening a lot of passengers even though dr. a fai and others are saying let's cut it out before christmas. what are you seeing? >> reporter: well, you know, the tsa reported as of yesterday it screens more than 1 million people for the third conning istive day in a row, that's the first time since march. so it seems like there are many americans who are traveling to see their family for the christmas holiday, connell. connell: yeah, it sure does. and we'll see maybe the effects

of that in a few weeks, unfortunately. matt, thank you, matt finn live in phoenix, arizona, for us today. thanks for watching us today and every day as we report the news to you "after the bell." 9 the dow up 37 today, i'm mcshane, thanks for watching. see you again tomorrow. ♪ gregg: good evening, everyone, i'm gregg jarrett sitting in for the vacationing lou dobbs. there is a growing possibility now that multiple adversaries attempted parallel suable or attacks against -- cyberrer attacks against the united states. cybersecurity experts at microsoft say they've identified a second cyber attack that used software from texas-based i.t. company solarwinds, and that attack believed to have been carried out from a separate group who used solarwinds software updates to infiltrate the networks of at least 200 federal agencies, multi-national corporations, hospitals, universities and